This invention relates to countermeasures for killing a hostile missile and more particularly to the deployment of non-explosive interceptor elements ("NEI") deployed in the direct path of an incoming hostile missile from a spin stabilized rocket.
Battlefield engagements involving such weaponry as tanks, mobile artillery vehicles and other artillery pieces are vulnerable to attack by enemy armor-destroying missiles. Defensive countermeasures to neutralize or kill such incoming hostile attacks generally utilize explosive means for destroying the hostile missile and as a result pose a threat to friendly military personnel in the battle zone. Currently available countermeasure systems which involve guided missiles are costly and complicated to construct and, above all, the use of explosives as a countermeasure offer the potential of harming friendly military personnel. The use of countermeasures activated by proximity fuses are particularly hazardous to friendly military personnel. What is needed is an active defense system that itself is not explosive and yet will effectively intercept and kill an incoming guided missile using NEI which will at least lessen or decrease the hazard to friendly military personnel in the vicinity.
Known defensive systems, such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,869 are deserving of comment. The teachings in this patent involve the use of non-explosive rods and pellets which are strewn in the orbital path of a satellite target moving in outer space. The targeted spacecraft is engaged and destroyed by the colliding and penetrating rods. The deficiency of such known systems is the ability to deploy the interceptors at precise time and in a controlled array such as a cloud of interceptors to effectively destroy the hostile missile. Other defense systems employ automatic guns that fire projectiles containing heavy metal shrapnel-like elements. A time delay fuse sets off an explosive charge that randomly sprays the shrapnel and subprojectiles against the hostile missile. Unlike the present invention the subprojectiles and shrapnel-like particles pose a hazard to friendly military personnel. Other known countermeasure techniques involve the use of guided missiles that are triggered by a contact fuse or otherwise guided by optical sensors to engage the incoming hostile missile. It has been found that the high probability of successfully defending against such hostile guided missiles is the creation of a cloud of NEI which are deployed directly in the trajectory path at a precise time and in a controlled pattern to assure collision and destruction.